You Want Links: Be Helpful for #HappyDance

As an SEO, I’m still always happy to get a link thrown at one of my sites (#Happy Dance when linked to). Building links for better rankings can be hard, and is a specific skill set I’m afraid I have a black spot in as there was not a big need in my former job at eBay to master this. A large brand like eBay, with all the wonderful long tail auctions, gets links thrown at its website every day. I remember vividly the auction of the hair from Justin Bieber being sold on eBay, getting more than 1,400 links easily! And I don’t mean any links, but juicy ones from the BBC, The Guardian or The Huffington Post and a long al of smaller, less authoritative websites. One great SEO told me in a speaker room this was probably $1M worth of links, IF you would be interested in buying links.

Two weeks ago, when presenting at the SNAP conference, I actually spent around 20 minutes discussing ways to get links to your website. With the limited experience, I doubt I touched on all the ways you can build links. I just discussed the obvious ones, guest postings, remarkable content, presenting on a bloggers conference (you see what I just did there) or just being helpful where you can!

Just be Helpful

Overal, I’m just trying to be helpful to others, and here and there pick up a link when people decided I have helped them in the right direction. The objective is not necessarily to build links, I’m just paying it forward for all the help I’ve received in the past, and most probably will still receive in the future. But getting a link is always nice!

Sometimes you just have to be in the right place, at the right moment, and have the right information. Like the other day when I was strolling on Google+ to see what was going on. I stumbled on the following question with a picture if anybody could help with the origin of the statue displayed in the picture (see the picture here in the right).

I instantly recognized the monument; the Holocaust monument in Miami Beach. Back in 2010, I visited the monument which has been an experience hard to forget as the monument is so impressive, capturing a very dark time in Europe.

At first, I thought this was one of my pictures I took at the time, but as the background showed more of the monument, it actually was different than my photo.

Immediately I posted a comment on the site with links to my pictures on flickr explaining the origin of the photo, and where you can find the statue. Quickly after that, I received an email with a thank you note of the editor of the site, and attribution to my pictures on Flickr. As I had these pictures up on my own site (see Holocaust monument in Miami Beach pictures), I politely asked if the link could be pointed to the post. Within a short timeframe, it was done.

Sometimes it does not take that much to get a link to one of your sites, just being helpful can get you a long way.

BTW> I highly recommend to visit the holocaust monument in Miami Beach when you get the chance if you are there. It’s a very impressive experience, where there are even Holocaust survivors present to ask questions.

Comments

You are so right! A while back I was helping out a fellow SEO and I was doing it just to help him out as someone *cough* Jim B *cough* helped me out when I was starting out. I wasn’t excepting anything in return but he was kind enough to add a link to my site in a blogpost thanking me for contribution. My gf seems to get these type of links often. More than me I’m sad to say. She is in the fashion business and every once in a while gets links out of being helpful.

My favorite part is discovering them. I’m like daaaammmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnn a natural link!